Derby bragging rights for Royal Leamington Spa men

Malcolm Wickens claimed a convincing win over Malcolm Welch's rink as Royal Leamington Spa beat Lillington in a five-rink match.

Published:12:50Saturday 06 August 2016

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Royal Leamington Spa’s men beat a Lillington side featuring a number of excellent young prospects 105-78 in a five-rink encounter at Victoria Park on Saturday.

Despite easing into leads on three of the five rinks, the overall position was close for a long time, with Spa just holding the advantage by a single shot at the half-way point.

However, a stronger second-half performance by Spa, in which they outscored Lillington by almost two shots to one, saw them eventually take the match by a comfortable margin of 27 shots.

In the battle of the two captaining Malcolms, honours went to Spa with Malcolm Wickens leading Bill Claridge, Ron Deavall and Trevor Briggs to a 30-14 win over Lillington counterpart Malcolm Welch, who featured 14-year-old debutant Oliver French on his rink.

With only narrow wins in response for Mike Wallace over John Henfrey (15-13) and Malcolm Wickens over Les Woodfield (21-20), the match was decided by the Spa trio of David Payne, Dave Wigman and Jerry Horne, whose resounding 26-11 win over Dave Ballard gave their side a four-shot advantage to take into the second leg.

There were mixed fortunes for Spa’s ladies, who were in action twice last week.

Entertaining Rugby in a three-rink triples match, club captain Jenny Wickens led from the front as she skipped Jean Leyland and Enid Reece to a convincing 24-7 win.

It was much tighter on the other two rinks, with a narrow 16-14 win for Elizabeth Glynne-Jones ensuring a comfortable 52-36 victory despite a 15-12 reverse for Binki Herbert.

Two days later, Spa went down 59-45 to Warwick Boat Club.

Wickens was again in form for Spa, skipping Dawn Horne and Sheena Harris to a 21-14 win over Vivienne Griffin.

However, the other two triples could not match this performance as Mary Wheildon defeated Spa’s Wyn Jackson 19-12 and the Boat Club trio of Pamela Parker, Diane Harvey and Sandra Dean eased to a 26-12 win over Binki Herbert.

Avenue continued their winning run with a 98-79 mixed triples success at Kineton BC.

In a new fixture for the club, the highest winning rink of skip Phil Wadland, Graham Parker and Fran Parker were locked together at 4-4 after six ends before pulling away to win 23-10.

Tony Farmer (skip), Keith Orme and Barry Connolly were 9-3 down at six ends but then picked up nine shots on ends seven and eight on their way to a 25-16 win.

Ron Walton, Steve Franklin and Vera Booth also staged a stunning recovery, fighting back from 19-11 down with three ends to play to win 25-19 thanks to scores of five, six and three.